Wednesday, September 9, 2015

New Beginnings

Shortly before I got married my lovely bride told me a secret desire. She said "I want to save some money, quit our jobs, and vagabond around the world." It was a beautiful idea - and I, loving travel as much as she, wished so bad that we could go on a vagabonding adventure. Nonetheless, the realist (killjoy) in me spoke up. I looked at her and said "I think we need to pay our debts first."

That night we sat down to look at the total picture of our finances - together - for the first time as a couple. We were HORRIFIED by what we saw. We owed $358,399 in debt (mostly from our student loans). The largest chunk was from my law school education - but I still owed plenty for my undergrad. She, too, had a hefty sum of undergrad loans. The remaining portion was around $17,000 in credit card debt. On top of all that - we were still racking up new debt to fund our upcoming wedding.

It wasn't an easy night - but we decided to hold on to our travel dream. We resolved then and there to get out of debt 100% and live debt free.

That was June 1, 2015.

Today, September 9, 2015, we owe $351,585. It is still a lot, but I want to kick off this blog by sharing a victory. We paid for our wedding and smashed $6,814 of credit card debt in just over 3 months!

In this short time we have made life decisions, changed our thinking, and paid off 2% of our debt. We are on a path to becoming financially free - a journey to "disindebtification." And when we finally dig out, we will save some money, quit our jobs, and vagabond around the world.